Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in What Men Live By, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mystery
Rationality vs. Generosity
Selfless Love
Summary
Analysis
A Russian peasant named Semyon lives with his wife and children in a tiny cottage on rented land: he has “neither house nor land of his own.” Although Semyon uses all his earnings to support his family, they still live in poverty because food is expensive and his work as a shoemaker isn’t lucrative. The family is so poor that Semyon and his wife have to share a winter coat, and even this coat is in bad shape; they have been saving for two whole years to buy sheepskins for a new one. At last, Semyon believes that he has enough money: he and his wife have saved three rubles, and various villagers owe him money adding up to five more. Semyon puts his wife’s lightweight jacket on top of his own and heads for town to buy the sheepskins.
The story’s opening description of Semyon and his wife’s struggles characterize them as focused solely on rational, practical matters—namely, having enough to eat and staying warm. Semyon is not a member of the Russian landowning class. Instead, he is a peasant, meaning he belongs to the largely illiterate, uneducated, and impoverished class of serfs (essentially indentured servants working on borrowed land). Semyon’s troubles begin to suggest that it’s nearly impossible it is for this class of person to get by: he is neither lazy nor a reckless spender, but he still lives in poverty because of forces beyond his control.
Themes
When he reaches the village, Semyon tries to collect the money he is owed. The first of his debtors isn’t home, but his wife promises Semyon that her husband will bring him the money by the end of the week. The second of his debtors says that he has hit hard times and can’t possibly scrape together more than 20 kopeks now. Semyon takes his savings to the sheepskin dealer and asks if he can pay the rest of the sum later, once his debtors give him what they owe. But the dealer refuses to give Semyon the sheepskins until he can pay in full, saying that “We all know how hard it is to collect what’s owing to us.”
Semyon’s dealings with the villagers show that many of Semyon’s neighbors live in poverty similar to his own. It also shows that everyone is attempting to deal with their poverty rationally: through stingy spending, cool calculation, and narrow focus on self-interest. However, this calculating approach to poverty—which leads Semyon’s second debtor to explain that he can’t scrape together enough to pay what he owes—leaves Semyon in a financial impasse, since the sheepskin dealer refuses to let him buy the skins on credit. Everyone in the village is poor, and yet in spite of this common state of deprivation, people act with very little compassion for one another. Each person is so wrapped up in his or her own rational calculations that generosity seems impossible.
Themes
Depressed by his inability to procure the sheepskins, Semyon spends the 20 kopeks on vodka. As he walks home, he rambles drunkenly to himself. First he observes that the vodka has warmed him up so nicely that maybe he doesn’t need a new coat after all. But then he thinks of his wife, realizing that she will be angry with him for failing to get the sheepskins (and for squandering money on vodka). Finally, he grumbles about the stinginess of his neighbors: they all say they can’t pay because they’re short on cash, but what about Semyon’s own financial woes? Considering his various debtors’ financial situations, he comes to the bitter conclusion that he is actually poorer than all of them.
Semyon drinks to numb his pain, which emphasizes how difficult his life is and how impossible a solution feels. Yet Semyon’s idea that alcohol can substitute for a new coat is selfish—after a moment, he realizes that the vodka in his own body won’t warm his wife.Thinking about his wife, however, leads Semyon to imagine her anger at his failure. Then he, in turn, feels angry toward his stingy neighbors, given that he’s helped them in the past by allowing them to buy shoes on credit. This assessment leads Semyon to feel more embittered, and possibly even to regret his past generosity.
Themes
As Semyon is engaged in these resentful calculations, he passes a church on the side of the road. He sees a strange shape leaning against the wall. At first he thinks it is a stone or a cow, but then he realizes that it is a naked man. Semyon can’t tell if this stranger is dead or alive, and he speculates that perhaps someone has murdered the man, taken off his clothing, and left his body behind the church. Immediately, Semyon begins to worry about what would happen to him if someone saw him here. He worries that he would somehow get involved in—or blamed for—the situation. He resolves to get away from the man quickly.
Semyon’s reaction to the sight of a suffering person on the roadside is a continuation of his self-pity and self-absorption. His first thought, recognizing that this person may be dead or seriously injured, is not pity or compassion, but instead fear for himself lest he should get unfairly blamed. It seems that Semyon’s struggles—and people’s selfishness toward him—have emotionally hardened him and made him selfish in turn.
Themes
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Looking over his shoulder one last time, however, Semyon notices that the stranger is moving. He wonders if he should go back and help, but he convinces himself that this would be a bad idea. For one thing, the man might be crazy or violent. And for another thing, even if he doesn’t physically harm Semyon, he might ask him for food or clothing. Semyon has nothing to spare; surely he can’t be expected to give this stranger the shirt off his own back. “Please God, help me!” Semyon says to himself, continuing to hasten away.
Semyon considers the suffering stranger with the same coldly calculating, rational mentality that his debtors and the sheepskin dealer exhibited toward him (when they said that it was “impossible” to pay him his debts or let him buy the skins on credit). Semyon himself also used this kind of mathematical calculation to tabulate his neighbors’ fortunes compared to his own, even though it’s clear that they’re all struggling. Now he uses the same kind of reasoning to convince himself about why he both can’t and shouldn’t help the stranger. Yet Semyon’s plea with God to help him is a sign that he feels guilty and unsure of his decision.
Themes
Just as the church is about to disappear from Semyon’s view, his “conscience beg[ins] to prick him.” He stops suddenly and reproaches himself for his callousness. Is he really going to leave this stranger to die alone? He asks himself sarcastically if he has become so rich that he is scared the man will rob him. Feeling suddenly ashamed of himself, he turns back toward the naked stranger.
Semyon undergoes a sudden and mysterious change of heart immediately after he asks God for help. Although he presumably meant for God to help him by getting him out of this difficult situation, God actually helps Semyon by sending him this prick of conscience and compelling him to love this person selflessly. The fact that Semyon has this revelation without God saying anything explicitly to him suggests that selfless love is a natural impulse, but that difficult circumstances (like those Semyon is facing) can bury this impulse beneath cold rationality and self-interest.
Themes
